Borromeo for JESUS

Becoming Who You Are: Owning up: To recollect, to regret, to be responsible, ultimately to forgive and love. Chance and choice converge to make us who we are, and although we may mistake chance for choice, our choices are the cobblestones, hard and uneven, that pave our destiny. They are ultimately all we can answer for and point to in the architecture of our character.  Friedrich Nietzche saw the process of becoming oneself as governed by the willingness to own one’s choices and their consequences — a difficult willingness, yet one that promises the antidote to existential hopelessness, complacency, and anguish. The legacy of that deceptively simple yet profound proposition is what philosopher John J. Kaag explores in Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux) — part masterwork of poetic scholarship, part contemplative memoir concerned with the most fundamental question of human life: What gives our existence meaning? The answer, Kaag suggest...

("I am a Christian woman, and what I do know about Christianity is that we bear no prejudice, and everybody is welcome." — Lady Gaga)* JESUS: The Spirit of the Lord Is Upon Me Inside the synagogue, Mary inches her way to the front. She has heard from a passerby that her son is back from his travels and is now in the synagogue to preach from the scripture, as wont his usual way. And sure enough, Jesus is reading from the book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, he has consecrated me to bring good news to poor people, to set the oppressed at liberty, to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord.” He speaks with authority, the words coming out of his conviction, not like the scribes who ordinarily read the scripture on the sabbath. Jesus compares himself to Elisha the prophet, and to Elijah before him, and how the Lord will judge even the Jews. (There were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed but only Naaman the Sy...

BELIEVE IT OR NOT: Indian Science Congress Speakers Say Einstein Was Wrong, Newton Didn’t Understand Gravity At this year's annual meeting of the Indian Science Congress, senior research scientist Kannan Jegathala Krishnan dismissed Einstein's theory of relativity as "a big blunder" and said Newton didn't really understand how gravity works. Nageswara Rao, a vice chancellor at Andhra University in South India, said that Ravana, a demon god with 10 heads, had 24 kinds of aircraft of varying sizes and capacities — and that India was making test-tube babies thousands of years ago. Dinosaurs were created by the Hindu god Brahma, said Ashu Khosla, a scientist with expertise in paleontology at Panjab University in the North Indian city of Chandigarh. (From Indian Science Congress speakers say Newton was wrong, ancient demon-king had planes, by Kamala Thiagarajan, NPR, npr.com, Jan 10, 2019) Over here, we only debate CLIMATE CHANGE. Image: Einstein’s theory of g...

In the town of Nazareth lives a maiden at a crossroads in life. She’s heavy with child, her belly shows the baby could come out any day now. “The baby is due any day now,” she says to the man sitting with her in her parents’ house. They are alone.   “Mary, are you going to tell me something?” the man asks. He has heard rumors but he wants her to tell the truth.   “Nine months ago, when I visited my cousin Elizabeth, coming home from the marketplace, a Roman soldier waylaid me and abused me. I didn’t tell anybody but the soldier must have bragged about it.” Tears flow down her cheeks.   After a long silence, Joseph says, “I’ve heard about it... You know why I decided to go on with the wedding? I love you more than anything in the world. I’ll take care of the baby as if it were my own.” “Thank you Joseph, you’re a kind man. God loves all creation,” she says as she clasps his hands tight. “You’re right. The sun shines on both good and bad people. The Lord makes ...